Torn tendons or ligaments are accidents that can befall a great many individuals of all ages, whether they are active or inactive, following trauma or overexertion. The surgical repair techniques commonly used consist of attaching the tendon, using a suture thread, to a screw, a peg or a piton fixed into the neighboring bone.
For that, it is generally necessary to bore a hole in the bone and screw in a screw or a piton, or to bore in the bone an untapped hole that will take a peg that can lock into the bone, which serves as an anchorage means to which a suture thread is then attached and used to attach the tendon which has been torn from its bony support. In other techniques, once a hole adapted to receive an anchoring piton has been bored, the suture thread is passed through the eye of the anchoring piton, then the piton is inserted into the hole using special equipment, and finally the tendon to be attached is stitched on. An example of an anchoring screw for attaching tissues using a suture thread is described in the patent U.S. Pat. No. 5,443,482.
Depending on the case, the interventions may be performed either in open surgery or in closed surgery using coelioscopic or arthroscopic methods. Surgical techniques employing devices of this kind are described for example by F. A. Barber et al., J. of Arthroscopy and Related Surgery, vol. 11, no. 1, p. 21-28 (1995).
These known devices have the drawback of being highly invasive, non-absorbable and of requiring insertion techniques which are often tricky to employ; furthermore some products used here contain allergizing materials, for example certain shape-memory materials, and sometimes even cancerogenic materials, according to certain authors. Furthermore, a great many screws, pegs or pitons and accessories for boring the bone and inserting the anchoring means need to be available in various sizes in order to suit all situations.